Rethinking access by private parties to the Court of Justice of the European Union : judicial review of union acts before and after the Lisbon Treaty

This dissertation deals with the old topic of EU law regarding access by individuals to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to challenge the validity of Union acts. The study is based in two landmark judgments rendered by the CJEU in 1986, i.e. Les Verts and Johnston, and it argues that the bridge between these two decisions has not been fully built in the CJEU’s case-law, which has left room for uncertainties, ambiguities and insufficiencies in what concerns the judicial protection of private parties vis-à-vis the EU. In light of the Les Verts judgment, the dissertation argues that the CJEU’s case-law is dominated by an objectivist, institutional and systemic approach which has given rise to gaps of judicial protection of private parties in the Union legal order and underlies the inability of the CJEU to fill in such lacunae. In this context, the dissertation stresses (i) the restrictive interpretation of standing requirements of private parties to bring an action for annulment; (ii) the irrelevance of the finding of a breach of the right to effective judicial protection at the Union level; (iii) the generous view to other objective and institutional dimensions of the Union system of judicial review; and the (iv) systemic concerns regarding the docket control of the CJEU combined with a certain view of the Union judicial architecture said to be fundamentally anchored in national judiciaries. Furthermore, it is submitted that the alternative routes to the direct access by individuals to the Union courts put forward by the CJEU have proved inadequate and ineffective, because of the objectivist, institutional and systemic conceptual approach underlying to the CJEU’s case-law on the scope and nature of such avenues. At this point, the dissertation discusses the issue of national procedural autonomy, the nature of preliminary references, and the TWD doctrine. Additionally, it is argued that the CJEU’s case-law regarding judicial review in the field of the former intergovernmental pillars suggests an institutional and objectivist trend as well. In drawing attention to the objective elements, the institutional preference and the systemic views enshrined in the CJEU’s case-law the dissertation brings to the fore institutional guarantees, as a reflex of the objective dimension of fundamental rights. In contrast with the previous approach, it is argued that the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty requires the CJEU to adopt a more subjectivist approach to the issues of judicial protection of individuals in the EU. Such an approach is anchored in the Johnston verdict which laid the first stone regarding such issues in the Union legal order. It is submitted that the new Article 6 TEU involves a paradigm shift regarding fundamental rights protection in the EU. In this context, the dissertation discusses the procedural impact of the formal constitutionalization of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and of the accession to the European Convention on Human Rights. The changes introduced by the Lisbon Treaty regarding judicial review of Union acts at the initiative of individuals are discussed in light of said constitutional shift. The dissertation puts forward several proposals regarding the interpretation of Article 19 TEU and Articles 263(4) and 275 TFEU — taking into consideration the recent GC’s decision in the case of Inuit — in light of the pro actore approach which should arguably underlie to the CJEU’s case-law in this regard. Lastly, the issue of a more generous approach to direct access by individuals to the Union courts is discussed in view of the CJEU’s workload concerns. The possibility of a European certiorari, among other possible judicial reforms, is analysed therein.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.